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Re: The Murdoch Mess

Phone hacking: Glenn Mulcaire has been ordered to reveal who told him to access six public figures' voicemails. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the centre of the News of the World phone hacking, has been ordered by a court to reveal who instructed him to access the voicemails of model Elle MacPherson and five other public figures including Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes.

Mulcaire is due to reveal these details by the end of next week in a move that will throw further light on the scale of phone hacking at the now defunct News International tabloid.

The Guardian has learned that Mulcaire has lost an attempt to appeal against a court order obliging him to identify who instructed him to hack the phones, something he has resisted since February.

Mulcaire, who was jailed in 2007 after pleading guilty to hacking the phones of members of the royal household for the News of the World, has been forced into making the disclosure following legal action by the comedian and actor Steve Coogan.

In February, Coogan's lawyers argued in court that if it were proved that the News of the World had instructed Mulcaire to hack into the phones of the six public figures, it would show that phone hacking was taking place at an industrial scale.

Mulcaire must now name names in relation to MacPherson, Hughes and four others – the celebrity PR Max Clifford; the football agent Sky Andrew; Jo Armstrong, a legal adviser to the Professional Footballers Association; and Gordon Taylor, the former head of the PFA. At his trial in 2006 Muclaire also admitted hacking the phones of five of the six names in Coogan's court order.

Taylor was gagged by News International after reaching a £700,000 out-of-court settlement. Armstrong also settled with the paper out of court.

"After six months of refusing to answer these questions I am pleased that Glenn Mulcaire has now finally been ordered to say who at the News of the World asked him to hack the mobile phones of Max Clifford, Sky Andrew, Gordon Taylor, Simon Hughes MP, Elle MacPherson and Jo Armstrong," Coogan said.

"Whilst I am pleased with this latest development I remain frustrated by Mr Mulcaire's refusal to answer questions about who authorised him to unlawfully access my voicemail messages and will continue to press for these answers."

Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the centre of the News of the World phone-hacking affair, is suing the now defunct tabloid's publisher News International in an attempt to force the company to pay his legal bills.

Mulcaire's action comes after the company, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, announced on 20 July it would stop paying his legal costs with immediate effect.

It emerged earlier this week that News International has paid "approximately £246,000" to lawyers acting for Mulcaire.

He has issued a high court writ claiming News Group Newspapers, the News International subsidiary that published the News of the World until last month, has a contractual obligation to pay the legal bills he is running up fighting more than a dozen high court cases being brought by public figures. The company received the writ on Wednesday.

Mulcaire is named as a defendant in numerous cases, including those being fought by actor Steve Coogan and Labour MP Chris Bryant, along with News Group Newspapers.

It was Mulcaire who is alleged to have routinely hacked into messages left on mobile phones on the instructions of senior figures at the News of the World.

He has already served a jail sentence for illegally intercepting messages left on phones belonging to members of the royal household.

News International confirmed it had received the writ but had no further comment.

James Murdoch, who has managerial responsibility for News International as News Corp's deputy chief operating officer, told MPs on the Commons culture, media and sport select committee in July that he was surprised when he was told the company was meeting Mulcaire's legal costs and said he would end that arrangement.
(...)
Mulcaire was employed on a rolling 12-month contract by News International and it was reviewed on an annual basis. That was cited by the company as the reason it awarded him a payoff despite the fact he had been arrested for phone hacking in 2006, at which point his relationship with the company ended.

James Murdoch told MPs he was "very surprised" to learn the company was meeting the private investigator's legal costs.

Following Murdoch's 20 July comments, Mulcaire's solicitors Payne Hicks Beach wrote to News International to inform the company it was still legally liable to pay for a high court appeal he was fighting.

Mulcaire's appeal was against an order forcing him to identify who at the News of the World ordered him to hack into mobile phones.

Re: The Murdoch Mess

LONDON — Britain's biggest-selling tabloid newspaper was fighting to contain the damage after five of its employees were arrested Saturday in an inquiry into the alleged payment of bribes to police and other officials, detectives and the newspaper's parent company said.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. said the five employees from The Sun tabloid had been detained and that police had searched their homes and the group's London offices, potentially deepening the scandal over British tabloid wrongdoing.

A 39-year-old female employee at Britain's defense ministry, a 36-year-old male member of the armed forces and a 39-year-old serving police officer with Surrey Police, were also arrested, police said.

The development follows the arrest of four current and former journalists at the newspaper last month in connection with the same bribery inquiry.
Sun editor Dominic Mohan expressed his alarm at Saturday's arrests, but insisted the six-day-a-week newspaper would continue its work.

"I'm as shocked as anyone by today's arrests, but am determined to lead The Sun through these difficult times," Mohan said in a statement. "I have a brilliant staff and we have a duty to serve our readers and will continue to do that. Our focus is on putting out Monday's newspaper."
Two people familiar with the matter, both of whom requested anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the issue, said Murdoch was scheduled to head to London in the near future to spend time with the company's journalists. One person explained that the trip had been planned for some time and wasn't in reaction to the latest arrests.

News Corp. declined to comment on Murdoch's travel plans, or on whether he planned to address staff at The Sun.

(...)

A former News of the World executive, who also requested anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigations, said The Sun's current deputy editor Geoff Webster, picture editor John Edwards and chief reporter John Kay were among those arrested Saturday. Sky News and other British media reported that chief foreign correspondent Nick Parker and reporter John Sturgis were also being questioned. News Corp. would not publicly confirm the identities of those detained.

The executive – who said he was in touch with the Sun's senior staff – claimed that management there were "fighting to halt morale collapse" at the tabloid, describing Mohan as "somewhat shellshocked" by the arrests.

A total of 21 people have now been arrested in the bribery probe – including three police officers – though none has yet been charged. They include Rebekah Brooks, former chief executive of Murdoch's News International; ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson – who is also Prime Minister David Cameron's former communications chief; and journalists from both the News of the World and The Sun.

Police said the inquiry – which is running in parallel to investigations into phone hacking and alleged email hacking – had also now widened its remit. It was initially focused on whether reporters had illegally paid police officers for information, but will now examine whether other public officials were also targeted.

In a statement, police confirmed the latest arrests came after information was provided to detectives by the management standards committee of Murdoch's News Corp., set up to investigate alleged malpractice.

(...)

Britain's National Union of Journalists claimed some News International staff felt let down by managers over their cooperation with the police. "Journalists are reeling at seeing five more of their colleagues thrown to the wolves in what many sense to be a witch-hunt. They are furious at what they see as a monumental betrayal on the part of News International," the union's general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said.

"Once again Rupert Murdoch is trying to pin the blame on individual journalists hoping that a few scalps will salvage his corporate reputation," she said.

All eight people arrested Saturday are being questioned by police in London and at stations in the southern England counties of Kent, Essex, Surrey and Wiltshire.
Police said later Saturday that they had completed searches at the offices of News International, a division of News Corp., in east London.

The five journalists from The Sun – aged between 45 and 68 – are being quizzed on suspicion of offenses of corruption and aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office. Police said the three public servants were being questioned on suspicion of misconduct in a public office and corruption offenses.

Deborah Glass, deputy chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, said Britain's policing watchdog was cooperating over the inquiry. "Today's arrests are further evidence of the strenuous efforts being undertaken to identify police officers who may have taken corrupt payments," she said.

Assistant Chief Constable Jerry Kirkby, of Surrey Police, confirmed that one of his force's officers was being questioned. "The force takes matters of this nature extremely seriously and we will not hesitate to respond robustly to allegations where there is evidence to support them," he said.

Surrey Police was responsible for the investigation into missing 13-year-old girl Milly Dowler, who was later found murdered. A wave of public revulsion over the disclosure that reporters had intercepted her voicemails in 2002 led Murdoch to close down the News of The World.

Britain's ministry of defense declined to comment on the arrest of the defense official.

Re: The Murdoch Mess

Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks has been arrested as part of the police inquiry into allegations of phone hacking.

Five other people were detained, including Mrs Brooks' husband, the racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks.

The arrests took place in Oxfordshire, London, Hampshire and Hertfordshire.

Police said one woman and five men were held on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, as part of the Operation Weeting hacking probe.

News International has confirmed that its head of security, Mark Hanna, is among the six people being held.

Former News of the World and Sun editor Mrs Brooks was arrested at her home in Oxfordshire. Her husband was also detained and they are now being held at separate police stations.

Officers are searching addresses connected to the arrests.

As well as Mrs Brooks, 43, and Mr Brooks, 49, the other people arrested are a 39-year-old man from Hampshire, a 46-year-old man from west London, a 38-year-old man from Hertfordshire, and a 48-year-old man from east London.

The six are being interviewed at police stations in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and London.

Mrs Brooks was arrested under Operation Weeting last July on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, before being released on police bail. She has also been arrested as part of the Operation Elveden investigation on suspicion of corruption.

Mrs Brooks is the only suspect among the six to have been arrested previously as part of the ongoing police operations. All the others are fresh arrests.

Mr Brooks is a good friend of David Cameron, whom he has known for more than 30 years since their days at Eton school.

The Brooks's live a few miles apart from the Camerons in the prime minister's constituency.

Mr Brooks wrote in his Daily Telegraph column on Monday about how much he was looking forward to going to the Cheltenham horse racing festival, which began on Tuesday.

"The happiest moment of my year is about three hours before the first race at Cheltenham on Tuesday," he said.

The Metropolitan Police said the arrests were carried out after consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service.

It brings the total number of people arrested in Operation Weeting and its linked inquiries to 44.

The other investigations are Operation Elveden into corrupt payments to police officers and Operation Tuleta into computer hacking.

Re: The Murdoch Mess

David Cottle with, inset from top, Ray Adams and Reuven Hasak. While News Corp has consistently denied any role in fostering pay TV piracy, emails obtained by the Financial Review contradict court testimony given by Operational Security officers as well as statements by News lawyers in the past three weeks. Photo: Louie Douvis

A secret unit within Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation promoted a wave of high-tech piracy in Australia that damaged Austar, Optus and Foxtel at a time when News was moving to take control of the Australian pay TV industry.

The piracy cost the Australian pay TV companies up to $50 million a year and helped cripple the finances of Austar, which Foxtel is now in the process of acquiring.

A four-year investigation by The Australian Financial Review has revealed a global trail of corporate dirty tricks directed against competitors by a secretive group of former policemen and intelligence officers within News Corp known as Operational Security.

Their actions devastated News’s competitors, and the resulting waves of high-tech piracy assisted News to bid for pay TV businesses at reduced prices – including DirecTV in the US, Telepiu in Italy and Austar. These targets each had other commercial weaknesses quite apart from piracy.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is still deliberating on final details before approving Foxtel’s $1.9 billion takeover bid for Austar, which will cement Foxtel’s position as the dominant pay TV provider in Australia.

News Corp has categorically denied any involvement in promoting piracy and points to a string of court actions by competitors making similar claims, from which it has emerged victorious. In the only case that went to court, in 2008, the plaintiff EchoStar was ordered to pay nearly $19 million in legal costs.

News Corp’s Australian arm, News Ltd, on Wednesday afternoon issued a statement hitting out at the AFR’s report.

“Anyone who reads Chenoweth’s extraordinary report will be struck by the complexity and murkiness of the relationships, actions and motives involved in the NDS story. The AFR welcomes any further independent investigation of the serious matters he has brought to light.”

The issue is particularly sensitive because Operational Security, which is headed by Reuven Hasak, a former deputy director of the Israeli domestic secret service, Shin Bet, operates in an area which historically has had close supervision by the Office of the Chairman, Rupert Murdoch.

The security group was initially set up in a News Corp subsidiary, News Datacom Systems (later known as NDS), to battle internal fraud and to target piracy against its own pay TV companies. But documents uncovered by the Financial Review reveal that NDS encouraged and facilitated piracy by hackers not only of its competitors but also of companies, such as Foxtel, for whom NDS provided pay TV smart cards. The documents show NDS sabotaged business rivals, fabricated legal actions and obtained telephone records illegally.

(...)

The emails support claims by the BBC Panorama program, aired in the UK on March 26, that News sought to derail OnDigital, a UK pay TV rival to News’s BSkyB, that collapsed with losses of more than £1 billion in 2002, after it was hit by massive piracy, which added to its other commercial woes.

While News has consistently denied any role in fostering pay TV piracy, the Adams emails contradict court testimony given by Operational Security officers as well as statements by News lawyers in the past three weeks.

In addition to the controversy over OnDigital and Austar, the actions of Operational Security have triggered five separate unsuccessful legal actions by pay TV companies around the world, each claiming damages of up to $US1 billion.

Covert operations in Australia were directed by the head of Operational Security for Asia Pacific, Avigail Gutman. At the time Gutman was based in Taiwan, where her husband Uri Gutman was the Israeli consul, before she was promoted to be a Group Leader based in Jerusalem.

(...)

With the internet in its infancy, the set-top box of the pay TV service was seen as the key to controlling future media, through the interactive and expanded services the box could offer.

The key to the set-top box – and the heart of any pay TV business – is the conditional access system. The broadcaster issues paying customers with a smartcard that is inserted into the set-top box to decrypt the satellite or cable signal fed into the customer’s home. The system also manages the entire customer record base. It’s the nerve centre for the business –but if the encryption is broken and the smartcard is hacked, the pay TV operator is wide open to piracy. It can no longer control who watches its broadcasts and loses its revenue stream.

When it established Foxtel in Australia, News used its own conditional access provider, its Israel-based subsidiary NDS. But the smart card NDS provided Foxtel was similar to NDS cards that had already been pirated elsewhere.

Only a handful of companies offered conditional access services for pay TV – NDS’s chief rivals were Nagra, owned by Kudelski in Switzerland; Seca, owned by Canal Plus in France; and Irdeto, owned by Mindport in South Africa.

By the mid-1990s, NDS had become the glue holding Rupert Murdoch’s global pay TV empire together providing conditional access services to Foxtel, BSkyB and STAR (in Asia). It also had big contracts with other broadcasters such as GM’s DirecTV in the US. But the NDS conditional access system was also the most widely pirated and was in danger of being driven out of business.

Re: The Murdoch Mess

Lewis has been Rupert Murdoch’s prime antagonist in the crisis rocking the mogul’s media empire in Britain. His 2007 lawsuit on behalf of a hacked soccer official kicked the scandal into gear, and he broke it open this summer with his suit on behalf of the parents of Milly Dowler, the murdered schoolgirl whose phone was hacked by Murdoch journalists when she disappeared. The uproar surrounding the Dowler revelations caused Murdoch to shutter his legendary News of the World tabloid, and he agreed to a landmark, multimillion-dollar payout to settle the family’s legal claim.

When Lewis went toe-to-toe in those negotiations with Murdoch, there came a moment, he says, when Murdoch finally blinked—and it was when Lewis threatened that, in his words, “we would take it to America.”

Now Lewis says he is mounting a U.S. challenge to Murdoch all the same. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, Lewis confirmed for the first time that he plans to file three separate lawsuits on behalf of clients who believe their phones were hacked while they were on U.S. soil. At least one of the cases, Lewis adds, involves allegations that the phone of a U.S. citizen was hacked. “This is getting wider,” Lewis says. A spokesperson for News Corporation declined to comment.

Lawyers and Murdoch opponents have been searching hard for U.S.-based cases since the scandal reached a head this summer. For one, they could bring the public-relations nightmare closer to home for News Corp., the parent company for Murdoch’s media conglomerate, which is headquartered in New York.

Analysts say the company has worked hard to limit the damage to its U.K. arm, News International, whose newspaper business accounts for just a fraction of the News Corp. bottom line. “News Corp. has so far tried to keep matters in the U.K. and has moved toward a policy of settling all cases as speedily as possible,” says Claire Enders, a London-based media analyst who follows News Corp. closely. “Mark Lewis launching these lawsuits in the U.S. brings the issue of phone hacking into News Corp.’s backyard, where they have the potential for significant embarrassment. And the people who are going to get the most embarrassed by this are the Murdochs in New York.”

Re: The Murdoch Mess

Rupert Murdoch is "not a fit person" to exercise stewardship of a major international company, a committee of MPs has concluded, in a report highly critical of the mogul and his son James's role in the News of the World phone-hacking affair.

The Commons culture, media and sport select committee also concluded that James Murdoch showed "wilful ignorance" of the extent of phone hacking during 2009 and 2010 – in a highly charged document that saw MPs split on party lines as regards the two Murdochs.

Labour MPs and the sole Liberal Democrat on the committee, Adrian Sanders, voted together in a bloc of six against the five Conservatives to insert the criticisms of Rupert Murdoch and toughen up the remarks about his son James. But the MPs were united in their criticism of other former News International employees.

The cross-party group of MPs said that Les Hinton, the former executive chairman of News International, was "complicit" in a cover-up at the newspaper group, and that Colin Myler, former editor of the News of the World, and the paper's ex-head of legal, Tom Crone, deliberately withheld crucial information and answered questions falsely. All three were accused of misleading parliament by the culture select committee.

Rupert Murdoch, the document said, "did not take steps to become fully informed about phone hacking" and "turned a blind eye and exhibited wilful blindness to what was going on in his companies and publications".

The committee concluded that the culture of the company's newspapers "permeated from the top" and "speaks volumes about the lack of effective corporate governance at News Corporation and News International".

That prompted the MPs' report to say: "We conclude, therefore, that Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of major international company."

James Murdoch is described as exhibiting a "lack of curiosity … wilful ignorance even" at the time of the negotiations surrounding the 2008 Gordon Taylor phone-hacking settlement and into 2009 and 2010. The younger son of Rupert Murdoch is criticised for failing to appreciate the significance of the News of the World hacking when the "for Neville" email first became public in 2009 and during subsequent investigations by parliament in February 2010 and a New York Times report in September 2010.

"We would add to these admissions that as the head of a journalistic enterprise, we are astonished that James Murdoch did not seek more information or ask to see the evidence and counsel's opinion when he was briefed by Tom Crone and Colin Myler on the Gordon Taylor case," the select committee said.

Even if James Murdoch did not appreciate the significance of the £700,000 Taylor payout, the committee concluded it was "simply astonishing" that he did not realise that the "one 'rogue reporter' line was untrue" until late 2010, after a previous inquiry by the culture select committee which ran during 2009 and reported in February 2010.

According to minutes published by the committee, the MPs were almost unanimous in their criticism of Hinton, Myler and Crone.

Rebekah Brooks, the former News of the World editor and News International boss, was largely spared from the MPs' criticism. The report said that it would not draw conclusions on evidence to the committee about Milly Dowler, the murdered schoolgirl whose voicemail messages were hacked by the News of the World in 2002, because of an ongoing police investigation into Brooks.

However, the MPs said that Brooks must take responsibility for "the culture which permitted" unethical newsgathering methods over Dowler in 2002. The MPs said: "The attempts by the News of the World to get a scoop on Milly Dowler led to a considerable amount of police resource being redirected to the pursuit of false leads."

Brooks is on police bail after being arrested as part of Scotland Yard's investigation into phone hacking on 17 July 2011 and, separately, on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice along with her husband, Charlie, on 13 March this year. Brooks denies knowledge of or involvement in phone hacking or other illegal activities.

The culture select committee charged Hinton with being "complicit" in a cover-up of wrongdoing at Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

MPs said that Myler and Crone deliberately withheld crucial information and answered falsely questions put by the committee.

The executives demonstrated contempt for parliament "in the most blatant fashion", the MPs said, in what they described as a corporate attempt to mislead the committee about the true extent of phone hacking at the News of the World.

The MPs said that Hinton, executive chairman of News International until December 2007, had "inexcusably" misled the committee over his role in authorising the £243,000 payout to Clive Goodman, the former royal editor convicted of phone hacking in January that year.

"We consider, therefore, that Les Hinton was complicit in the cover-up at News International, which included making misleading statements and giving a misleading picture to the committee," the MPs said.

Crone and Myler were accused of deliberately misleading the MPs on the culture select committee in 2009 and again in 2011 about their alleged knowledge that phone hacking went beyond a single "rogue reporter" at the now-closed Sunday tabloid.

"Both Tom Crone and Colin Myler deliberately avoided disclosing crucial information to the committee and, when asked to do, answered questions falsely," the MPs said in the report.

All three executives now face the prospect of being called to apologise before parliament, in a constitutional move that has not been used for almost half a century.

The report could prove especially problematic for Myler, who is only five months into his editorship at the New York Daily News.

The select committee said it would table a Commons motion asking parliament to endorse its conclusions about misleading evidence.

Myler said he stood by his evidence to the committee. "While I respect the work that the select committee has carried out, I stand by the evidence that I gave the committee. I have always sought to be accurate and consistent in what I have said to the committee," he said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon.

"The conclusions of the committee have, perhaps inevitably, been affected by the fragmented picture which has emerged from the various witnesses over successive appearances and by the constraints within which the committee had to conduct its procedure.

"These issues remain the subject of a police investigation and the Leveson judicial inquiry and I have every confidence that they will establish the truth in the fullness of time."

Hinton has issued a statement denying the allegations. "I am shocked and disappointed by the culture, media and sport select committee's allegations that I have misled parliament and was 'complicit' in a cover-up," he said.

"I refute these accusations utterly. I have always been truthful in my dealings with the committee and its findings are unfounded, unfair and erroneous.

"To be clear, not once in my testimony before the committee did I seek to mislead it or pass blame for decisions to others. Nor did I participate in a 'cover-up'. Furthermore, there is nothing in my evidence to support the committee's findings that I did. I will be writing to John Whittingdale, the chair of the committee, to object formally."

News Corp said in a statement: "News Corporation is carefully reviewing the select committee's report and will respond shortly. The company fully acknowledges significant wrongdoing at News of the World and apologises to everyone whose privacy was invaded."

Re: The Murdoch Mess

LONDON—Prosecutors in the U.K. charged the former head of News Corp.'s British newspaper unit, Rebekah Brooks, on Tuesday with conspiring to obstruct justice, marking the first charges filed in a wide-ranging criminal investigation into wrongdoing at the U.S. media company's British tabloids.

Ms. Brooks, who served as editor of the News of the World and the Sun tabloids before running all of News Corp.'s newspapers in the U.K., was charged by the Crown Prosecution Service with perverting the course of justice. Prosecutors also charged her husband, Charles Brooks; her former assistant; her chauffeur; and two men who provided security for Ms. Brooks.

The obstruction charges relate to the continuing police investigation into phone hacking and the alleged corruption of public officials by News Corp. titles, the News of the World and the Sun newspapers, according to prosecutors. Ms. Brooks has also been previously arrested on suspicion of corruption and conspiring to intercept communications, but she wasn't charged Tuesday in relation to either of those allegations. She remains on bail for those allegations.

The charges spelled out by prosecutors date to a period from July 6-19 of last year, when the long-simmering phone-hacking scandal—the subject of a police probe since January 2011—boiled over publicly following a July 5 article in the Guardian newspaper alleging that the News of the World had hacked the phone of a missing teenage girl, who was later found dead. Days later, News Corp. closed the 168-year old News of the World.

Ms. Brooks, a longtime protégé of News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch, faces three charges. Prosecutors said she conspired with her husband, Charles Brooks; Cheryl Carter, her former assistant; her chauffeur, Paul Edwards; and two individuals employed by the company that provided security for her, Mark Hanna and Daryl Jorsling. Messrs. Hanna and Edwards remain employees of News Corp.

Prosecutors said she also allegedly conspired with her former assistant, Cheryl Carter, "permanently to remove seven boxes of material from the archive of News International."

And Ms. Brooks, her husband and several of the others allegedly conspired "to conceal documents, computers and other electronic equipment" from police officers, prosecutors said.

Ms. Brooks and her husband said in a statement, "We deplore this weak and unjust decision" and said they would respond later Tuesday to what they described as "the further unprecedented posturing" of the prosecution service.

A lawyer for Ms. Carter said in a statement that "she vigorously denies" the charges. "I have no doubt that ultimately justice will prevail and I will be totally exonerated," Mr. Hanna said in his own statement. The two others who have been charged couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal.

(...)

The charges will also serve as an embarrassment for Prime Minister David Cameron, who is a longtime friend of Mr. Brooks and had become close to Ms. Brooks too.